Observations about books for children and teens from the Cooperative Children's Book Center

Wednesday, February 15, 2017

CCBC Multicultural Statistics for 2016

This post is adapted from "Publishing in 2016: A Few Observations," an essay that will appear in the forthcoming CCBC Choices 2017 publication.

The CCBC has been documenting the number of books published by and about people of color and First/Native Nations book creators in various ways for 32 years. For the first nine years, we only documented books by and about Africans and African Americans. Beginning in 1994, we began documenting and counting books by and about Africans and African Americans, Asian Pacifics and Asian Pacific Americans, First/Native Nations individuals, and Latinos. (More about what we count and how we count.)

The slips designed and used by CCBC librarian Merri Lindgren for books to log and count.

Of the approximately 3,400 books we received
at the CCBC in 2016, most from U.S. publishers, here’s the breakdown*:

278 books had significant
African or African American content

71 of these were by Black authors and/or illustrators

92 books were by Black authors and/or illustrators

21 of these had no visible African/African American cultural content)

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237 books had significant
Asian/Pacific or Asian/Pacific American content

75 of these were by
authors and/or illustrators of Asian/Pacific heritage

(*As always, it’s important to note that these numbers are solely
a reflection of quantity--or lack thereof--and have nothing to do with quality,
which, as with everything we receive, varies widely. Additionally, the number of books "by" does not refelect the number of individual book creators in each category, as a number of authors and illustrators created multiple books. Finally,the numbers
will change slightly as we continue to receive a stray title or two. Check the statistics on our statistics on our web site for up-to-date numbers, including a breakdown by U.S. publishers only.)

Brown-skinned Daniel.

As part of the CCBC’s ongoing work around diversity in
children’s and young adult literature, 2016 marked the start of a new project
for us: a diversity analysis of the picture books we receive. We haven’t quite
completed the work of looking at 2016 titles in depth (that will be a future
post), but, anecdotally, we can say this: in picture books featuring humans (as
opposed to animals or inanimate objects) as principle characters, the default
is still to whiteness (that is, white characters). Having said that, we can
also say that a definite trend is to make some main characters brown-skinned,
with no identifiable culture or cultural content to the stories. While this
cannot and should not be seen as a substitute for books with cultural content,
it is not unwelcome when care is taken to avoid stereotypes in representation. (A future post will discuss how we evaluate these books in terms of our counts.)

It was also, thanks in part but not whole to Canadian publishers
distributing in the United States, an unusually bountiful year for outstanding Native
picture books, including My Heart Fills with Happiness, Leah’s Mustache
Party, The Owl and the Lemming, Thunder Boy Jr., and We Are Not Alone, among
others.

The #OwnVoices movement was one of the most important
developments of 2016 for all of us who care about books for children and teens.
The hashtag, coined by author and disability advocate Corinne Duyvis (On the
Edge of Gone), promotes the importance of books created by cultural
insiders to the identity experience they portray. It’s an idea that is both
common sense and radical, and one that underscores the importance, too, of publishers
seeking out new talent. Among the debuts of new authors of color we appreciated
in 2016 are The Sound of Silence by
Katrina Goldsaito, and Riding Chance by Christine Kendall.

Two broad categories--Asian/Pacifics and Latinos--saw a notable jump in numbers this year for both "by" and "about." The numbers for African and African Americans and First/Native Nations remained disappointingly static or dropped. Those mixed numbers reflect our mixed feelings: It’s both an both an exciting and frustrating time for
multicultural literature advocates. Some of the excitement is familiar. Each and every year, there are wonderful new books. Among the many 2016 titles
we’re eager to share with librarians and teachers across Wisconsin and beyond
are Ghost, Makoons, Outrun the Moon, Playing for the
Devil’s Fire, and many others. Some of the excitement is a direct result of
social media providing wider visibility to the current era of this advocacy
work, giving the voices of people of color and First/Native Nations and their
allies in the world of children’s and young adult literature greater reach.

The frustration is familiar, however. It’s explained by the fact
that, overall, the numbers that haven’t changed drastically in the 32 years
we’ve been counting. It’s explained by
the fact that the conversations we are having now, about the importance of
multicultural literature, about the importance of publishing books by authors
and artists of color and First/Native Nations, about the importance of calling
out racism in books for youth, still need to take place. And it’s explained by
the fact that these conversations have been going on in one form or venue or
another for well over 70 years.

The field of children’s and young adult literature is not removed from our society as a whole, so the fact that we are still having these
conversations is, on the one hand, no surprise. But it’s also a field in which
so many of us, from authors and artists to editors and publishers to librarians
and teachers, believe in the power of books and reading to change the world.

We are dreamers and we are doers, and we can change the
world by showing all children that they are seen, and valued, and respected,
book by book.